


Til It Bore an Apple Bright

by coricomile



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Norse Religion & Lore, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:35:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27470587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coricomile/pseuds/coricomile
Summary: The day the wolf arrived, Jared introduced himself to Jensen.
Relationships: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki
Comments: 12
Kudos: 209





	Til It Bore an Apple Bright

**Author's Note:**

> For the J2 Reverse Bang! I had a fun time playing with Norse mythology (and butchering it). Thank you to [JDL71](https://jdl71.livejournal.com/profile) for the beta!
> 
> I haven't participated in many reverse bangs before, and it was exciting to sign up for this one. I was also lucky to be teamed up with bluefire986 who not only made some beautiful art, but also is a really cool person! Thank you Blue 💙
> 
> Please go love on her art on [Ao3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27478486) or [LJ](https://bluefire986.livejournal.com/25427.html)!

[ ](https://imgur.com/PRR8kFW)

Jensen had been alive before. He could almost remember his clan if he tried long enough, faces of people that he called mother and brother and friend, blurs of skin and hair and eyes and voices. He could almost remember the battle he had died in - the blood under his hands, the righteous fury that had driven him on to protect those people blurs long past the time he had been impaled through the stomach with a blade he had never seen before. The pain of his last moments, laid out in the mud, waiting to be called home.

The hall was vast and sprawling and so beautiful that it had made him nearly weep when he had been taken to his first feast, everything he had ever been told and so much more, indescribable with human words or human emotion. And there, behind the endless wine and boar meat and the loud voices of fellow fallen warriors, at the head of the table that was miles away and yet somehow still so close, sat the Allfather. 

His thick beard reached to the space below the table, so white it was hard to look at straight on. His hat hid the eye Jensen knew was missing, but Jensen could feel the other on him, just like he was sure it was watching every other warrior in Valhalla. Two wolves the size of horses sat on either side of him, their muzzles gored with the blood of raw meat. Behind him, in one of the few dark spaces in the hall, a tall shadow loomed, almost still but the thing on its shoulder that had to be a bird. 

The warriors closest to him at the feast had laughed at Jensen's slack face, not unkindly, and shared their own first nights in epic tales that had left Jensen's sides aching from laughter and his mouth calling out disbelief. It was almost like being back with his own clan, the easy companionship of others who knew real violence and death. 

Time moved differently in the hall. There were days and there were nights, but the hours didn't exist. When the sun came up, the warriors moved onto the sprawling fields and fought to mortal wounds for as long as the sun hung in the sky. When it set, their bodies reformed, skin closing and eyes opening and insides resetting to their proper places before the feast, where rich food and heavy drink was plentiful and warriors laid together, the battle already forgotten under the tender hands of another. 

Once, Jensen had thought death would free him from battle. Once, Jensen had thought he would lay down his spear and shield and have rest. His entire life had been one war or another, training and leading and killing, all for a greater good. Death, he found, was just more training for an even bigger war, that final battle that could end all the worlds and take them with it. There was no rest for him and never would be. 

Jensen pushed down his disappointment. This was his eternity and he had yet another duty to attend and he wouldn't fail the Allfather. He trained. He ate. He learned the name of every warrior in the hall one by one and didn't bother wishing for change.

[ ](https://imgur.com/qxprkht)

The day the wolf arrived, Jared introduced himself to Jensen.

Jared, who had stood behind the Allfather at every feast, never once himself consuming food or drink or taking a seat at the table. Jared, who the ravens climbed over and decorated his hair with bits of branches and gold pecked straight from the Hall's walls. Jared, who was something that had come into existence long before any of Jensen's ancestors were even thoughts. 

"You aren't happy here," Jared said, the ravens forever hovering over him, even amongst the flying arrows in the training fields. One of them - later, Jensen would learn their names, later Jensen would learn that Muninn tended to sit closer while Huginn flew away at all times of day, even when he always returned - pecked disdainfully at Jensen's hair, grown too long and left untended. 

"I'm in the hall of Odin," Jensen said. He looked back toward the towering castle with his feather soft bed, baths that never ran cold and the company of thousands of other warriors lived. When he turned back to Jared, the eyes with a thousand colors inside of them were fixed on his face, Jared's head cocked to the side. He looked like one of the birds. "How can I not be happy?"

The raven still pulling at Jensen's hair croaked right next to his ear, vibrating and low and loud enough to hurt. Jensen's hand ached to swat at it but he could only imagine what sort of wrath he would face for striking it. The corner of Jared's lips turned up, his ancient face somehow boyish and charming with the pit of a dimple cut into it. He lifted his hand lazily and the raven reluctantly left its grooming behind, fluttering to sit inside of Jared's cupped palm. 

"Muninn is fastidious," Jared said with a gentle laugh, gently coasting two fingertips over the bird's back. Muninn ruffled his wings, head turned away from Jensen like he was disappointed. Jensen's fingers closed tighter around the body of his spear. "I am memory and thought, Jensen. I am Odin's great advisor. My boys tell me everything and I have never once forgotten any word of it. You were a great leader in life and Odin himself chose you to spend the rest of eternity here. But you're not happy."

Jensen pressed his lips together. Would he be thrown from Valhalla? Where would he go? 

"You're being promoted, if you want it," Jared said, still smiling faintly. "You're not being punished. Come with me. See for yourself."

Jared led him into the hall, down a set of steps behind Odin's throne, where Jensen had never once even gotten near. The castle grew cold as the stone closed in around them and blocked the sunlight from the windows. The ravens didn't follow them down and Jensen's chest tightened as he realized they were moving toward the cells far below the ground, where only the worst were kept. If Jared tried to lock him away-

"This isn't a punishment," Jared said again, laughter in his voice. He touched one of the stones, his fingers trailing across a rune gently. "I like it down here. It's quiet." 

It felt like they had been walking for miles when the stairs finally ended. The air no longer smelled like the sweat and sweet wine the way the rest of the hall did and it was quiet, just the soft noise of the castle itself, their own disturbances of it, and under all of it a soft sound of an animal whimpering. Jared led him just a little farther, past empty cells, until they reached the end of the corridor. 

"Hello," Jared said, squatting down onto his booted heels, placing his hand on the bars. He smiled briefly, gesturing for Jensen to join him. "Jensen, this is Fenrir. Come. Meet him." Jensen stood behind Jared, thumb hooked around the hilt of his dagger, breath held as he looked into the cell. 

Inside, a miserable ball of gray fur huddled in one corner, muzzle under its oversized paw and big sad eyes locked straight on Jensen. It whimpered again, the pathetic thing it called a tail swishing as much as it could. The pup flicked its small ears and Jensen's heart ached for it. He'd seen wolves separated from their packs before, creatures that didn't tend to last long, and the bodies of the pups who had been left behind. They never survived on their own. 

"Why is there a wolf pup locked in the deepest part of Valhalla?" Jensen asked, even as Jared wiggled his fingers at it, trying to get it away from its corner. Jared shook his head. 

"Fenrir is the son of Loki," he said. When the pup made no move to get closer, Jared sighed and stood. Even here the firelight caught the gold woven into his hair and made him look more god than human, if he were either. "He's fated to kill Odin in the battle of the gods."

"This little thing?" Jensen asked. He took a step closer and Fenrir sneezed, his whole body shaking. "Why lock him up? He's just a baby. He could be raised- Oh." 

"Oh," Jared mimicked, grinning down at Jensen. He put one warm palm on Jensen's chest, meeting his eyes and holding. Jensen didn't lean into the touch as much as his body thought it would be a good idea. "When Odin told me Fenrir would need a guardian and trainer, I suggested you. I think you'll raise him well."

"Why?" Jensen glanced at the pup who had crept forward, belly low to the ground and ears perked forward. When he looked back at Jared, his smile had grown wide, dimples shadows in the firelight. 

"I thought you would be happier away from the fields," he said with a gentle pat to Jensen's chest. He pulled a golden key on a leather cord from under his tunic, waving it under Jensen's nose. "Want it? It's a heavy burden, but…" 

"But?" 

"You get to spend all day playing with a wolf instead of getting stabbed in the stomach," Jared said. Jensen laughed loudly enough to startle Fenrir back into his corner, but Jared looked pleased with himself. "Well?"

"Yes. I want it."

[ ](https://imgur.com/CLFzkvK)

The hall was the most beautiful place Jensen had ever seen. The wilderness, where they had been taken to, was still better.

In the woods, trees grew over a vast spread, so high and thickly plush that in some spots the sun wasn't visible in the middle of the day. Even under his bare feet when he took his boots off, the grass acted as a cushion, softer than some of the beds he laid on. Thick foliage served as a hiding place for all manner of creatures, some he had never seen before in life. Fenrir liked that part the most, forever running ahead and snapping his jaws at birds and nipping at hooves and things three times his size. 

Jensen liked the cliff with the waterfall the best. It was a long climb up, breaking past the treeline to a field of yellow and blue and purple flowers that grew tall and wild. They left the air smelling sweet when the wind blew; forever spring. The waterfall had long cut through the earth, leaving a canyon nearly as wide enough to fit two castles between. Below, a lake bluer than the sky bubbled and breathed with it, the edge of it reaching farther than Jensen could see even from so high. He made their camp there most of the time, his bedroll and the growing and shrinking cage that held Fenrir at night, born out of the key Jensen carried against his heart. 

It seemed cold to lock the pup up, especially as he grew more each day. When they began, a few weeks maybe, a month - time had no meaning, not before and definitely not now - Fenrir had barely cleared Jensen's ankles. Now he stood just below Jensen's hip and when they laid together on the ground he reached Jensen's chest. One day, Jared had said, he would grow as tall as the trees, if not taller, and letting him run completely free was dangerous. Jensen couldn't see any of that in his pup - because Fenrir was _his_ , Loki be cursed - who loved nothing more than chasing butterflies and rolling around on the ground with him. The gods had been wrong before, and they could be wrong again. Jensen and Fenrir would prove it. 

[ ](https://imgur.com/qxprkht)

"You spoil him," a voice said from above, hidden somewhere in the trees. Jensen couldn't see the ravens through the canopy of leaves above, but he knew they were near. Wherever Jared went, at least one followed. Jensen wondered how much those pests had told Odin about him, what their little spy eyes had seen that would one day be used against him. What Jared had seen through them, his body in the Hall, but his mind with Huginn. 

"I do not," Jensen said, even as he continued to rub Fenrir's bulging belly. He'd eaten an entire doe, save for the leg Jensen had wrestled away for himself, and was paying for it now, whining pathetically. There was a thump against soft leaves and then Jared stood over them, hunched at the waist to scratch beneath Fenrir's chin. 

"You do," Jared said with a laugh, his ever bright eyes turning to Jensen. "I've seen it." 

"It's not polite to spy." Jensen gave the wolf one more pat before standing, dusting off his knees. He'd lost his tunic somewhere days ago, ripped off in the woods as he gave chase to a boar. He didn't miss war, but sometimes longed for the feeling of violence at his hands again. His body may have healed with each new morning, but his clothing did not. 

"It's not spying," Jared said, leaning back against a tree.

"Then what do you call it?" Jensen asked, the corners of his mouth turning up when Jared had no response. "What are you doing here? Don't the birds check up on me enough?" 

"I thought you might want company," Jared said simply, shrugging with his whole body. "And it would be nice to see the woods." His grin spread, eyebrows raised as he looked down over Jensen's bare chest. "Though it appears I'm overdressed." Jensen straightened his back and lifted his own eyebrows. Sometimes, he wasn't so sure that _Jared_ wasn't a son of Loki. 

"Time to exercise," Jensen told the wolf. Fenrir raised one corner of his lip to bare a fang but rolled to his paws when Jensen frowned at him. The great ender of worlds, indeed. 

The woods spanned leagues in all directions. Jensen had yet to see each corner, preferring the edge nearest the cliff. The darkest parts made him uneasy, even with the knowledge that he could not die again. He would rather not feel himself being torn to shreds by whatever beasts might linger there all the same. Maybe when Fenrir was larger. Still, he had become familiar with many of the deer paths and the areas with trees and bushes that grew fruits, a place that was slowly becoming as dear as home. 

Jared looked at everything with wonder, though, his hands constantly reaching out to touch leaves and branches and bramble. Jensen watched him from the corner of his eye as Fenrir led them off the path toward a place that rabbits tended to burrow. If he ate himself sick again, Jensen wasn't going to pity him. A warbler flew from its nest and flitted around Jared curiously, only backing away when Jared reached for it. 

"Have you never been here before?" Jensen asked. It took Jared a moment to tear his eyes away from the bright bird flapping away. 

"Just through Huginn," Jared said, distracted as a breeze brought in the smell of the patch of wildflowers a mile or so away. "I haven't left the hall in… millennia." It sounded miserable. The land outside the hall was so vast it was impossible to imagine never travelling it if given the chance. 

"Why not?" 

"I'm the advisor," Jared said with a small shrug, some of the joy fading from him. He glanced at Fenrir who was doing a complicated dance with a terrified rabbit and shook his head. "I've never had a reason to before. I think I like it out here." 

"You can come visit us whenever you want," Jensen offered, like he had any say. Jared gave him a small smile anyway, nearly shy enough to make Jensen wonder if he had friends in the Hall other than the birds.

[ ](https://imgur.com/CLFzkvK)

Fenrir grew and Jared joined them outside frequently, appearing from nowhere and disappearing just as easily. The ravens didn't like the woods but they were constant companions in the fields and clearings, squawking at one another and Jared and Jensen like they were having their own conversations. Maybe they were. Jared understood them at least and had the tendency to laugh after particularly long cawing fits without explaining the joke. Jensen wasn't sure he wanted to know what sort of jokes birds found funny.

The first time Fenrir tried to snap his jaws at Huginn, he'd gotten pecked in the face and spent the rest of Jared's visit hiding poorly behind Jensen's legs. His days of being stealthy were long behind him. As the weeks passed, Fenrir and the ravens seemed to come to some sort of agreement and entertained themselves whenever Jared was present, leaving the two of them mostly on their own. 

"They're like children," Jensen said as Huginn and Muninn flew around Fenrir's head, turning him in endless circles until he whined and flopped onto the grass. They had been outside for nearly a year and Fenrir's head came to the middle of Jensen's back when he stood on all four paws.

"Huginn and Muninn are nearly as old as creation," Jared said, but his eyes were bright as he watched them. 

He'd taken a liking to the waterfall as well and the pair of them sat on the bank of the river that flowed into it, their feet in the water and fruits packed from the Hall laid out between them. The gold in Jared's hair had been formed into a wobbly circlet and the sun shone almost too brightly for it to be looked at straight on. 

"And you?" Jensen asked.

The first few times he had come, even after the pleasantness of the first visit, Jensen had been cautious. Jared was Odin's right hand and Jensen had one job to do that was more important than he could even comprehend. The visits could have been just a closer look at his process, Jared a clever way to keep an eye on them both, but those thoughts fell away quickly. Jared loved the river and the animals that cautiously approached him. He had endless questions about what it was like to be alive as a human, which Jensen struggled to remember the longer he stayed in Asgard. He laughed with his throat exposed at Fenrir's endless antics and let his face be licked until it was messy with wolf spit. If he was just Odin's spy, he did a good job of hiding his motives. 

"Are you asking my age?" Jared asked, leaning back onto his elbows in the grass. His tunic had been discarded long ago, his chest bared to the sun. The strange scar of Yggdrasil carved into his skin stayed silvery, more brand than blade wound, and Jensen's eyes kept wandering to it. Jared hadn't offered the story yet. 

"Maybe," Jensen said. He mimicked Jared's position, the grass cool against his skin under the heat of the sun. Winter, it seemed, didn't come to Asgard, or at least not to the outside places of the hall. He didn't miss the cold at all but he did miss snow. Fenrir would enjoy it as well. Something new to play in and make a mess of. Jensen glanced at Jared out of the corner of his eye. "Maybe asking what you are, too."

"I wasn't and then I was," Jared said with a shrug. "I'm not as old as Odin or the ravens, but I think I'm older than humans." He closed his eyes, head tipping backward to take in the sunlight. Radiant, Jensen thought. He knew the word, had spoken it before, but for a moment he really understood it. Jared skipped his fingertips over his scar and it was impossible not to stare at it again. "Freya said I fell from Yggdrasil, but she's been known to tell stories." Jensen nodded when Jared turned to him, face as still as he could keep it. 

"So you're an apple," he said. River water choked him through his laughter when Jared threw him in. He felt no fear when he dragged Jared in with him.

[ ](https://imgur.com/qxprkht)

Wolf puberty involved a lot of howling. Jensen rolled onto his stomach and groaned into his hands. The key around his neck dug into his chest, a guilty bite of discomfort. Whatever magic had been put onto the cage made it grow alongside Fenrir, but it was still cruel and wrong to lock him up. It wasn't as though he could hide, standing as tall as Jensen's shoulders now, and if Jensen couldn't find him, Huginn or Muninn would have no trouble.

Still, at every nightfall when he could no longer keep his eyes open, he led Fenrir to the doors and locked him in with soft apologies. There were rules to be followed, no matter how much those sad eyes broke his heart. If he failed in his duties, terrible things could happen. If he slacked on them, he might be replaced and he wasn't prepared to be separated and sent back to endless war drills. 

"They can hear him in the hall," Jared said quietly. Jensen jerked in his bedroll. He would never get used to the way Jared just appeared without a sound. "They're telling ghost stories, as if they all aren't already dead." Jensen pushed the heels of his palms into his tired eyes and gave up on sleep as Fenrir gave another pathetic howl. 

"You could just tell them," he groaned. Fenrir perked up as much as he could under the top of the cage as Jensen approached, ears sticking through the bars. Muninn perched on top of it, talons locked around steel, and cawed for his brother. Jensen shot him a dark look as he turned the key in the lock. Fenrir took off as soon as he could, nearly knocking Jared over. 

"I could, but what fun would that be?" Jared shushed Muninn when Huginn failed to appear. His eyes faded for a moment before he looked up to the top of the cage. "He's in Midgard. He'll be back soon." Muninn gave another petulant squawk before flying off to peck at Fenrir's unruly neck fluff. Jared shook his head and grinned, teeth flashing under the light of the moon.

"Or you could come visit me for a change," he said. He folded himself down onto Jensen's bedroll, long legs crossed and bony knees spread. "We could see who else among the men are willing to wrestle with Fenrir, really prepare them for the battle." Jensen snorted and sat beside him, leeching off his warmth. 

"He'd beg for belly rubs and try to eat the whole of Saehrimnir by himself." Watching Fenrir now, with canines the size of his hand, he didn't doubt the wolf could. 

"At least then the warriors would be distracted. I'd be able to put my plan into place," Jared said. Under the moonlight, his eyes nearly glowed. 

"Your plan?" Jensen asked. Jared's knee pressed against his and stayed there, oddly but pleasantly heavy. Grounding. "And what is your _plan_?" 

"Just this." Jared curled in toward him and brushed his lips over Jensen's, soft and sweet. When he tried to move away, Jensen wrapped his hand around his arm and held, thumb over the place a pulse should have been. 

"Just that?" he asked. Jared smiled at him, sunlight in the middle of the night, and tackled him down to the grass. Beyond them, Fenrir chased the raven.

[ ](https://imgur.com/CLFzkvK)

Jared did have duties in the hall; couldn't spend every night outside of it with them, but he appeared often, sending Muninn with gifts clutched in his beak if he was away for more than a week at a time. Jensen had awoken more than once to find bits of ivy and fur threaded through his hair, which had grown even longer than Jared's. He didn't know if that was another _gift_ of Jared's or if Muninn had decided to continue his hair stylist career on his own.

Fenrir had grown to stand as tall as Jared. Each paw was bigger than their heads and Jensen had seen him swallow a fox whole and hadn't had the heart to scold him. They had been outside the hall for two years or maybe two centuries. He could never tell and Jared had an even worse sense of time than he did. 

They lost days and nightfalls often, curled up on the soft bed of Fenrir's back as he carried them farther and farther from the hall, Huginn and Muninn scouting ahead for interesting new places. Jensen told stories, some real and some made up, and Jared listened with a curl to his lips and his eyes never leaving Jensen's face. Jared spoke of places that Jensen could never even dream of, seen through Huginn's eyes. He didn't have Jensen's way with spinning an image, but his enthusiasm bled into every word and made them vivid with emotion. 

When they needed time alone to remind each other of touch outside of their beloved charges, Jared sent the ravens out as babysitters and living toys, certain of gigantic Fenrir's puphood learned fear of sharp beaks and claws and his boys' cunning. Jensen would have hated either of them to get hurt, but his own boy was good and pulled his swats and the snap of his teeth when they played. 

Jensen didn't pull the bite of his own teeth and Jared didn't pull the ancient power inside of him. Jared tasted more like mead than apple and Jensen wondered if he still tasted of blood and dirt, or if the pine and grasses had finally overtaken him.

[ ](https://imgur.com/qxprkht)

The ravens darted through the trees, both of them, and Jensen smiled, waiting for Jared's appearance. If Huginn was absent, Jared would be too, body stuck in the corridors of the hall and mind elsewhere. He didn't have to wait long before a heavy weight fell from above on top of him, knocking him to the ground and stealing all of Jensen's air away. Jared tended to take off his hall regalia before he appeared and Jensen was down to the tatters of what had once been nice trousers. He might have been taming Fenrir, but he thought Fenrir might have been changing him into something feral as well.

Eventually, Jared pulled away. He fluttered brand hot kisses over Jensen's face- eyebrow, cheek, corner of his mouth, down to the point of his chin. Jensen tried to wrangle him back down, but the down twist to his mouth turned Jensen's stomach to stone. Jared smiled at butterflies and late bloomed flowers in need of a little more sun and the crawling stick bugs with brown spotted wings that he always saw before the ravens could eat them. Jared smiled at Fenrir's bloody maw after a successful hunt and the memories of the troops slaughtering each other. A frown spelled something too unpleasant to imagine.

"Jared?" 

Jared pushed himself to his feet, a cat in the land of one wolf, and held his hand out to Jensen. Jensen took it without question. For a long moment, Jared stared down the path that led to the waterfall, still the favorite place of all five of them. Jensen kept his palm over the scar on Jared's chest, ready to keep him anchored on Asgard, but his eyes didn't turn that shade of gray that meant he was away with Huginn. 

"Jared." Jensen cut into his sightline, lifting himself up to block the rest of the forest. "What's wrong?" Jared stared at him for a long moment, the unnatural frown aging him, pain radiating from him like the first strike of lightning. For the first time since he had died, Jensen felt true fear. 

"They want to bind him," Jared said eventually, soft. His eyes slid away from Jensen's face, towards the wolf. Fenrir broke off the trunk of a smaller tree, chewing it between his jaws. When he tried to run with his prize, he became stuck between two more tree trunks, coming to a jarring halt. "They think he's become large enough to be dangerous, despite your raising of him." 

"Him?' Jensen said, extending his arm out toward the wolf tilting its head back and forth, valiantly trying to get to the clearing where he could play catch with himself. "He can't outsmart _flora_. You're the advisor. Tell them-"

"I tried," Jared said. His tongue flickered over his lips serpent fast, but Jared was the most honest being Jensen had ever known. "They're bringing the dwarf chains tomorrow." Muninn plucked Jared's hair once, almost like a kiss. Huginn croaked and disappeared behind one of Fenrir's shoulders to pull at his loose fur. There would be enough when he was done to make a cloak from. "Steel and gold and diamond and magic won't hold him. They want-" 

"What?" Jensen could feel the old bloodlust just under his skin. It had faded with his decades-centuries-millennia away from battle and the hall, but he had been a warrior once, had been the best leader his clan had ever seen. "What do _they_ want?"

"The dwarves are spinning chains out of impossibilities as we speak." Jared's jaw clenched, his ever glowing eyes going dull. "They want to bind him and starve him so he won't grow more. He's a godling. He won't die, but-"

"He'll suffer forever? He hasn't done anything more than eat some stags and howl in the cage they _force me to lock him in_ ," Jensen said, voice rising. He hadn't killed anything more than a stag since becoming Fenrir's caretaker, but his hands hadn't forgotten. He tightened them into fists and swallowed his anger. He couldn't fight the gods. 

"I know," Jared replied softly. 

"You're the advisor to Odin. The ravens see everything. He's just a big, stupid, _kind_ dog-"

"I tried." Jared shook, his whole body like a rapid down their waterfall. "Huginn and Muninn tried. We put every last thought and memory and idea into Odin's head, but he's so terrified that he's willing to torture Fenrir into the beast they always said he would be."

"I won't let them- we can't let them-" Jensen's nails dug into his palms, blood coming to the surface. "Fenrir is _mine_."

Like he knew he was being spoken about, the wolf dropped his tree trunk and ran toward them, paws sliding against forever decaying leaves. He skidded to a stop too late, tripping over his paws that grew faster than he did. He lolled his tongue out at Jensen, a pup smile on a giant, and Jensen sank into the familiar give of his side, both hands fisted into tufts of fur. The ravens followed after, annoyed that their playmate had been taken from them. Jensen pressed his face into Fenrir's coat and begged. Not this wolf pup that loved tree trunks and bathing Jensen's entire face with a single swipe of his tongue. Not this wolf pup that still ate too much and requested four human hands and four bird feet to rub his belly. Not Fenrir. 

"We could go to Midgard. Take him with us. There are deserts there that haven't been seen by human eyes in hundreds of years, and forests and islands." Jared looked up, face blank for a moment, remembering what the ravens had seen before. Jensen shook his head, even if he knew Jared couldn't see it. His stomach ached for the want of it, but-

"You want to run from the Allfather?" Jensen asked, fingers still dug deep into Fenrir's fur. Fenrir whined, the sound like metal grating. Jared reached up to pat him on the nose gently, his big palm barely big enough to cover it. Fenrir sneezed and gave a toothy grin. "I'm the keeper of the fated ender of worlds, which will one day be big enough that even the largest forest won't be able to hide him, and you want to run from the _all seeing_ Allfather?"

"I told you when we first spoke," Jared said, face lighting up as he worked through his plan. "I am memory and thought. And where I go, Huginn and Muninn will also go." Two calls sounded, one muffled through a beakful of fur. "Odin will see much less when his eyes are taken away from him." Jared laid his hand flat over Jensen's chest, soft palm against sun hot skin. "Do you trust me?"

"With my final death," Jensen replied. Jared kissed him once, rested their foreheads together.

"I need to do this so you can leave with me," he said. 

Pain hit him first, a flash of fire eating against his flesh, more excruciating than the mercy of a blade. Jensen bit into the inside of his cheek, blood coating his tongue, as he felt the bloom of something being carved into him. Jared shushed him gently, voice barely cutting through the spiraling, jangling, screaming of Jensen's nerves. Fenrir growled, the sound like the boom of thunder, and Jared shushed him, too. When he pulled his hand away, the burn lingered, barely soothed by the soft brush of Jared's lips over the center of it. 

Pain burned through him, a rejection and a blessing. Fenrir whined and the ravens shrieked and the great forest turned into blinding light. The only thing Jensen knew was the clasp of Jared's hand, the cut of Huginn and Muninn's talons on his shoulders, the rough handful of fur, and then the world shifted. 

The first thing he heard was the rush of water, so familiar that Jensen worried it hadn't worked. When he opened his eyes, the world was new; greener and thicker, hot and heavy with wet air that smelled like growing things. The ravens croaked and new sounds called back to them, sending Fenrir into a fit of excited spins, his tail catching on some sort of creeping vine. 

"I thought we would like this place," Jared said, his cool hand curling around Jensen's. "Fenrir can grow here forever. And we can-" Jensen kissed him, his insides so wide he felt like he would grow right along with Fenrir. 

He threw the key and cage over the cliff and watched it wash away down the waterfall, so high up he couldn't see the place it flowed into.

[ ](https://imgur.com/xyC8XFQ)

**Author's Note:**

> Come visit me on [Tumblr](http://coricomile.tumblr.com)!


End file.
